This sweet stollen bread is the ultimate Christmas bread because it has everything you want to eat on Christmas morning. Turn it into a decorate ring and it will be the centre piece of your table. Ready to learn how you can make stollen bread? Lets get started!

With Christmas around the corner I am treating you to a Dutch speciality which is a kerststol or stollen bread.

Which is a sweet bread with raisins and Almond Sugar Paste. To make it even more special I braid it into a bread ring.

Just looking at the end result you will want to take a bite. Believe me if you have taken a bite you want to eat the whole ring.

The original recipe is called a kerststol which is a rich bread with raisins, currants, nuts and almond sugar paste. The almond sugar paste is a thick long sausage shape and is easy to make from scratch.

In a regular stollen bread the sweet almond sugar paste is concentrated is only in the middle of the bread. To infuse the whole bread with the almond sugar paste braid it with two tails.

Braiding the bread this way gives the bread a more subtle almond sugar taste opposed to the original.

To make the bread requires some serious kneading. If you have a kitchen machine with dough hook you can let it take care of the heavy lifting.

I made the dough by hand and after combining all of the ingredients the dough has to be kneaded at least 8 minutes to let it become elastic and a little sticky. Then the butter is added and kneaded through thoroughly into a flexible dough.

Dutch stollen bread ingredients

To make this stollen bread with almond paste you need a number of ingredients. Make sure you get:

• Wheat flour
• Dry yeast
• Baking soda (optional)
• Sugar
• Cinnamon or speculaas spices
• Salt
• Skimmed milk
• Egg
• Soft unsalted butter
• Pecan nuts
• Raisins

For the almond sugar paste you need:

• White almonds
• Sugar
• Lemon juice
• Egg

How to make Dutch sweet stollen bread

To make this recipe start with the raisins. Put them warm water and leave them until you need them in the recipe.

The almond paste

Put the equal amount of almonds and sugar in a kitchen machine and blend. Then add the egg until you get a soft paste.

Add some lemon juice for freshness. Take the paste out of the kitchen machine onto cling film and store in the fridge for at least an hour.

The stollen bread

For the stollen bread, first add all the dry ingredients together and mix through. Then add the milk and egg.

Leave the butter aside and mix the ingredients to flexible dough for 8 minutes then add the butter in small increments.

Make sure that all the butter is absorbed into the dough before adding more butter. Save some butter for brushing.

Now let it proof for an hour so it can double in size. Roll into a square and add ¾ of the raisins and chopped pecan nuts.

Fold and roll again into a square. Take the almond sugar paste out of the fridge and spread across the square and the remaining raisins and pecans.

Now roll the square up into a sausage. Cut through the middle and braid by twisting the two halves. Roll into a circle.

Bake in the oven for at least 35-40 minutes until golden brown. Let it cool for 10 minutes and brush with the remaining butter.

Some icing sugar for decoration and you have an amazing Dutch Christmas kerststol bread ring. You can have this bread for breakfast, brunch or lunch.

Store stollen bread

There are a couple of ways to store this Christmas bread:

• You can store it out side of the fridge for a couple of days
• Slice it in smaller pieces and store in the freezer for a couple of weeks.

More traditional Dutch recipes

• Oven baked puff pastry apple beignets
• Traditional Dutch pancakes
• Traditional Dutch oliebollen
• The best Dutch apple pie

See how to make Dutch stollen bread

Want to see how you can make Dutch stollen bread? Watch the 1-minute instruction video below:

Have fun with this stollen bread recipe! Made a recipe tag @thetortillachannel on Instagram or PIN on Pinterest.

The post This sweet stollen bread is the ultimate christmas bread appeared first on The Tortilla Channel.